rapturerebornmmorpgfandomcom-20200216-history
Part 37
Sitemap --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- More interesting items/ideas for a BioShock Rapture MMORPG --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Part 37 --- --- --- --- --- An amusing parody video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQYUXFLY728 "BioShock Under the Sea Parody" --- Stuck/broken Pressure Seal doors in 'wrecked' part of Rapture : Don't try to blow them open with explosives - damaging them will cost a great deal of effort to get them working again or to replace them (having them working is highly desirable for YOUR safety). The City Council has posted warnings about doing things like this. Actuating pistons - repairs, powering units, triggering sensors - simple, robust, critical. Alternate access to other side of bulkheads - maintenance/emergency airlocks usually in parallel (sometimes a round-about path to get there). The bulkhead doors are designed to LOCK when activated til authorities confirm the situation is safe and reset them. Some were welded shut during the Faction Period to keep undesirables out (like Lamb's Family zombies) Difficulties in working underwater to do repairs. Impairments/damage to door mechanisms caused by long immersion in salt water (even though they were designed to largely resist that environmental factors. They still can require replacement/major repairs). Numerous Player missions will involve opening/repairing/maintaining/sealing of doors and bulkheads (major operations that can require alot of cooperative activity as part of New City expansion). --- --- --- Sinclair technology developments : Previously mentioned - Bio-Electronics - use of biological tissue with its evolution perfected mechanisms to do useful things which even Real World transistors (X-isters) technology would take decades to produce. Sinclair had made a fortune on the Surface in pharmaceuticals, and he had his hand into the ADAM technologies in Rapture. Thus he would be a logical candidate to be one of the developers of the bio-electronic products. He would know about the use of computers and the potential of electronics. Bio-Electronics tech opened up a shortcut into producing many useful new products to sell. His operation in Persephone would drop some cheap/persuadable expertise into his hands (a handful of useful inmates for his Think Tank ). --- --- Sinclair's logic advancement (Bio-Electronics) : Groups of nerve cells could be shaped via 'training' to fulfill certain logic patterns (including some of great complexity) which subsequently could be converted (baked) into electronic devices. Shaving the cell pattern with a Micro Lathe to duplicate a 'trained' pattern numerous times could increase the 'yield' (slicing certain materials extremely thin was one of the secrets in pharmaceutical production processes). Procedures used to mass produce vaccines and antibiotics could be employed to produce cheap useful circuitry. McClendon and others had built computers in the fashion of the Surface World designs (Tubes, then X-isters). They were expensive, huge, clumsy and a maintenance headache. Sinclair would sell them newly developed parts which allowed miniaturization and much greater complexity at a fraction of the cost of the 'big iron' computers. The significantly lowered price led to a widespread use of computers for business and research, as well as myriad other control uses for consumer goods and industrial systems. As computers for research were combined with Brain Boost for the designers/programmers, other technologies/production pushed forward more rapidly. The bio-electronic cell technology was different from the 'digital' methods the Surface World computers used - it could handle both binary and analog data. Biological neural analogs where employed, where a few dozen modified nerve cells with their thousands of weighted interconnected inputs could do complex logical functions, which would otherwise take tens of thousand of X-isters in a large rack of conventional circuit boards. ADAM was used to force natural cells into special formations like grids which would be used to temporarily store quantities of processing information or sequences of commands for the computer to execute (memory). Building block circuits could be standardized and mass-produced with custom logic being done only when needed. The sub-circuits would be assembled into larger modules upon a substratum to which external signal lines and power conduits would be connected. An innovation was to use a Comp-u-ter itself to train/grow cell circuitry using repetitive stimuli/adjustments employed to shape the cell network for the desired function (something quite tedious to do by hand). Microfilm programs could be fed into the training machines to produce a wide range of predesigned logic functions. Controller devices of all kinds could be made. Various methods could be used to simultaneously train multiple circuits. --- --- Wiring your NPC 'Teams' "Base" and other mini-game-like activities : Ever have a fuse blow (these days its resetting the breaker) and the after finally finding the hidden box somewhere, on fixing it to have it blow/trip again ?? Bad wiring can be much worse - think short circuits and wet floors. Players who have a 'Team' of NPCs would provide a place for them to reside, to store tools/equipment/choice selections of loot/materials. (This is the MMORPG equivalent of a 'House'). The cheapest way to get such a place is to claim some semi-wrecked nearby within-city-limits location and "fix it up" (rebuilding Rapture is a major 'theme' in this game). The more you add to it, the more useful it gets, and that includes the 'wiring'. Improvements : * Proper heavy wire * Breaker boxes so shorts wont burn the place down or damage equipment * Fixing any leaks anywhere near anything electrical(probably want to do this first) * More/better lights * Lots of outlets for various skill-usable machinery * Communication tie-ins - phone, TV, etc... I've seen Minecraft and the Wiring game interface would be an abstraction like that, except a little more 2D -- as it is stuff under floors/behind walls (plumbing would be similar). You would plan what changes you want to make (using the spiffy interface) and then your in-game Lackeys/hired-help would carry out the changes as tasks over time and when materials become available. (Other 'fix up' tasks are similarly driven). No doubt, there would be locations out in the 'Ruins' where you temporarily have to repair stuff to get past an obstacle or as part of the Mission (equivalent to a minor puzzle) which would employ similar interfaces. In that case its 'quick and dirty' salvage and repairs. --- --- --- To Burn Bodies or not to Burn Bodies - that is the question : Full Napalm tank, lotsa corpses about, and boredom .... (doesn't do much in BS1/BS2 ... too bad, was very unsanitary having rotting corpses all about.) New Rapture City health regulations state that whenever possible bodies are not to be left to decay in Rapture, as was done all too frequently in the Civil War period and later. All kinds of nasty diseases menace New Rapture's population and a general cleanup of the most obvious vectors had been decided upon. Kinda amazing how so many bodies lasted so many years in Rapture's damp environment. Sounds like yet another cleanup mission for out in 'The Ruins'. Not necessarily simple when it first must be ascertained whether the corpse has any value yet to it (ADAM recovery or genetic patterns or tissues and some search for goodies a little more involved than in the FPS loot interface). And if possible, also get any ID for comparison against old City records. Unfortunately, the mythical Vita-Chamber "Bring you Back from 10 Years Dead" isn't likely to happen these days (Delta/Johnny was a special case because of experimental data kept for them, and more than a few messy failed attempts -- well, Eleanor had years to try to get it to work.) Fires must be well contained, as Oxygen is one of the critical life-giving resources and large conflagrations can consume large quantities of it and threaten safety lots of ways. If Bounties are to be paid for the 'cremation' service rendered, what exactly constitutes 'proof' ?? Hauling corpses back to a Corpse-O-Rama turn-in center might be a bit icky/unpleasant. --- --- --- Touchy (controversial) Issues -- Embrace or Flee from them ??) : * Children in Rapture : result of 'relations', etc... (This game would obviously have a M17+ rating ...) Hehe, justification to omit : 'It is being worked on' (nah, couldn't last as an excuse). How many children would have survived in Rapture ? 1959 -> 1968+ (of course in the viable areas who isolated from Rapture City...) Are Splicers sterile ? Imagine what nightmares children with parents who were Splicers would be like (Hmmm, actually that could be quite an interesting subject). Ex-Splicers NOW live in the New City, their health and sanity restored ... More work for the Asset Creators - children who look and Act/Behave like children. * Religion : (especially with restorations allowed by New Rapture - even though wasn't actually banned under Ryan who likely had a grudge against it because it did not save his family from being murdered by communists in Russia). Out in 'The Ruins' Splicers are no longer under such restrictions, could go their own way. There might be some entertainment value religious weirdness attributed to insanity (ex - the Cult of the Epstein the Swami machine and their war with a rival Anti-Swami cult). But others could be more serious/realistic. Some Game Creators could get into real issues/representations that might make certain people 'uncomfortable' - but there is alot of MMORPG Rapture to go see, so IF you get uncomfortable, run for the exit doors.... YOU have that freedom to take any time you wish, (unlike other 'lead by the nose' choreographed games). Proselytizing of any particular one within-the-game ?? External links ARE prohibited - you have to 'make your case' within the game environment (and it IS an element of real-world-hood which this game is trying to emulate). * Racism ? Grace's comments sounded more like 'chip on the shoulder' exaggeration (but then we did see only a tiny bit of Rapture from a limited warped view, and that was from the 40s/50s era when attitudes were different). Racism is a reality, even today, especially with hypocrisy of those who are the first to cast such accusations. * Sexism ? New Rapture is a frontier environment where old patterns are much disrupted (also even Old Rapture was Post-WW2, when many social changes were already happening). There has to be (for legal reasons) anti-harassment measures within the Game. So - add to the game mechanism various anti-griefing measures which allow easy collection of recorded evidence (instead of so many games limited to charges of behavior which ill-equipped GMs have to investigate, or dim automatic systems which 'Griefers' quickly turn to their own advantage). We've already seen whorehouses in BS2, how much further would you need to go with that ? * Violence? Blood and Gore? I've already mentions a wider range of interaction effects for NPCs and Players (with many more ways of getting things done, besides the usual/endless/unimaginative "slaughtering everything in sight"). Blood and Gore, if realistic, might more impart repercussions to actions. The mandate to 'Save the Splicers' likely will also cut down on the chronic reliance on Violence to make for a more interesting game. Unnecessary violence could make NPCs quite uncooperative to abusive/malicious players (who may need to be broken from the behavior patterns of most other games). --- --- --- Newspapers in Rapture = Cheap Newsprint Paper available : Newspapers are discardable and in the time of 'normal' Rapture not yet recycled much (what kind of disposal? - being flushed out to the sea or incinerated near the surface where there's air for the burning - floating garbage would be a 'security' risk.) People did find myriad uses for it in those days before it finally winding up in the trash. Back to fish-n-chips served in newspaper... So there had to be a supply source of lots of cheap paper to print Rapture's several daily newspapers on - likely fewer pages than in a Real World (more populous) big city. Eventually the electric/electronic info systems would serve some of the same purpose, decreasing circulations. Glossy magazines might have taken up some of the slack. Possible newsprint' sources would be tree farms inside Rapture (wood fibre from fast growing trees) and outside in the Sea (Kelp farms close to the surface - fibery leftovers from other uses) There are also plenty of other uses for paper products (like good ole butcher paper, cardboard for product boxes, etc..) The old supply/printing/publishing locations would be logical Assets to find in the MMORPGs city ruins. --- --- --- --- --- Cheap Do-It-Yourself Fly-Bots - "I destroyed hundreds of them, and they STILL came !!!" : pix??? *FIX* diagram (compare a standard 'original' with later 'flying tincan' Fly-bot) I've seen/destroyed seemingly endless numbers of Security Fly-Bots so there must be a factory (assembly line) somewhere making new ones and shipping them to us (too bad they are too big to fit in the Pneumo - that would have helped explain so many). An Idea they SHOULD have had for the original BS2 (maybe in BS1) would be some Fly-Bots looking like they were much more cobbled together. Made from miscellaneous bits and pieces (tubes, tin cans, beer bottles, odd bits of pipe and wood, etc.. Enough to make at least 2/3rds of the thing -- one recycled produce-box isn't enough). Their average life-span was not impressive and seems a waste (maybe the Corpse-Gnomes who replace bodies with Lock-Boxes, also pick up the broken Fly-Bot parts for reuse ?? ... the CRV would be ??) The complex bits - Engine, Gun, Control unit, would not be so easy to 'cobble together'. The first two could be pretty crude (an AK-47 has just a few (largely) stamped metal parts... 1947 design, and alternate 'shotgun' array could be just a bunch of tubes, and the 'flying bomb' model - now that's pretty simple). The Control 'smarts' could be largely remote controlled. Requiring only radio + crude TV-imager (some kind of Sea Slug-eye based bio-electronic components) to be inside the Fly-Bot, and a remote 'comp-u-ter'/operator controlling it from a remote base. For some, an operator might not see all that much anyway with all that smoke put out by a crude mal-tuned engine. A likely best use of these cobbled late-era Flybots might effectively be to lay down a 'smoke screen' to assist in a hasty 'strategic withdrawal'. And since they frequently explode/catch fire, even their operators don't usually want to be too near them. The few fancy (expensive/complex/original) Fly-bots that are left in New Rapture would be saved for special 'security' occasions, and not wasted on routine rat-chasing missions. Bounties for 'original' spare parts and salvage are commonly offered. (I could see missions with activities related to maintaining New Rapture's units). Some simplified 'cheap' versions were designed for Ryan's War on Atlas as disposable assault units. Others (Factions) copied the designs for their own use. Reusable components from destroyed units were not uncommon (control units and engines in particular). The general crudeness of most of the remaining Fly-Bots means you will hear/see alot of backfires and other indicators of less than optimal operation (you should be able to hear them coming from quite a distance away because of the racket they make). --- --- --- FIX ... Add Diagram of 'cheap' Fly-Bot with recycled parts (and descriptions) "It just has to work, it doesn't have to be pretty" Running on Moonshine (high proof ethyl alcohol) with some kind of oil added like you do with a lawn mower/chainsaw engine. Alcohol has about 4/7ths the energy in gasoline so larger amounts are needed to power the engine. Rapture can easily produce ethanol from agricultural products and petroleum is not produced, there was little choice. Since many of these 'cheap' units are meant to be less automatic and more 'managed' by an operator, they can lack some of the fancier/complex/sophisticated features of the ones we are familiar with : * Self-starting might be a difficulty - old method of using a explosive 'starter' cartridge probably would work (which work only once before needing to be reloaded). Pull Starter would be likely for manually operated units, along with other manual methods (will need a generic figure animation of human going thru the motions of 'starting' a Fly-bot like one would a Lawn-mower - with a pull cord.) * Hop-Up Cola/beer glass bottle/cans - as gas tank(s) * Candy wrapper/paper airfoil skins (probably using fish glue for assembly over wood framework) * Pipe (like Thuggish Splicer's hunk of water pipe)... for structural power shaft or rotor driveshaft. * Rotors made partially of decorative siding/sheet, both metal and wood. * Gears might be needed, but clever ways around that are possible (and eliminating the contra-rotating blades would help with that). * Gumball machine armor casing (try shooting those things - they are indestructible). Actually those should be better used to make less vulnerable camera enclosures, as would the indestructible newspaper machines). * Paper-Mache molded body components (lightweight and easy to make - and possibilities of strange looking shapes for their psychological impact - flying masks, etc...). * Lightweight Engine which wont be pretty, but works. Designed to put out alot of power for a limited duration (like of 10 minutes). ** Tin can/fuel oil Can engine cylinders (some also made of ceramics) ** Beef-E tin engine block/carburetor ** Corpse Lockbox engine frame ** Weld jobs that are referred to as 'bubblegum' in the real world * 4x4 Array of shotgun shells in tubes for a weapon - used for point blank (high accuracy not required). Shells - Black powder is nasty stuff, rolled cardboard, metal bits and 'igniters' similar to type used on Estes model rockets). Stepper relay firing sequencer. Weapon 'ammo block' reloads done at the Fly-bots 'base' or by a handler (if the unit lasts more than one mission...) * Barstool/chair (metal tube) frame (saw some nice 3-leggers in The Mermaid Lounge) * Lots of Wood parts - lathing pulled from walls - frequently hand carved to aerodynamics shapes (propellers especially) * Duct tape and baling wire(guy wires) to help hold the contraption together ('Love' doesn't work in Rapture and there isn't much 'chewing gum' to be found there any more). * Lots of odd mismatched screws/nuts and bolts/fasteners (rusted/charred/dented) * Control unit + antenna + simple remote sensors (and lantern battery or 3 D-cells, 'Safe' brand) - takes more skill to make this work than anything else - some units might even be 'wire-guided' local control for simplicity (dragged telephone wire, which no doubt catches on things) * Cheap lightbulbs for spotlight (not that newfangled bio-luminescent stuff) or with limited duration/survival time of such units - a magnesium flare. * No armor - too heavy - the units damage pretty easy (maybe screen wire to keep insects out...). These unit's lower weight helps when they have a sub-optimal kludged-together tincan piston engine. Even the original units couldn't carry that much 'armor'. * Some Fly-bots might get a paint job to make them look a little more impressive than a heap of flying rubbish. Faction colors could be often used. Their impact may be more psychological rather than as firepower, as memories are awakened of the ones from the 'old days'. Sorry, no fully automated assembly line - too complicated to make that way (would have been too hard even for 'the Before Time' when incredible things were done every day). The Work required to fabricate them is still simple enough for 'distracted' Splicer workers and 'outsourcing' manufacture (we should have seen a big degradation in quality in BS2 as by that time new ones weren't being made and Lamb's minions couldn't much maintain/fix the ones that survived her attempts to subjugate other areas of Rapture). No, you cannot use Vita-Chambers to rebuild/restore destroyed Fly-bots -- that would have explained why we never seemed to run out of them, but it would be stupid -- like making a flying city out of brick buildings. --- --- --- --- --- Good Ending for Delta ?? : At the end you die. Residual memories as 'part of Eleanor' isn't exactly 'still existing'. Hard to say how that exactly is a 'good' ending. Of course you are sort-of a zombie brought back from the grave anyway, but a 'good' ending would be Tenenbaum breaking the self-destruct conditioning like she did Jack's various control issues. Since you had your own will (as far as you get it in the game), you wouldn't be a will-less robot like the other Big Daddies/Protectors and you could have at least gone back to Rapture to do some good (if you went to the Surface you would likely wind up as an exhibit in Area 51). Wasn't Delta still dying because of his previously severed connection with Eleanor (when Sofia strangled her and temporarily killed her) ?? Except that didn't happen. They mentioned not all the Alphas had that happen. You probably were near (?) death many times in the game and just popped a Medkit and were fine, so suddenly NOT having that be true/possible when that explosion happens at the end of BS2 ??? (or simply "the plot calls for it" so they can make happen anything they need, no matter how inconsistent or illogical or against physics... The same explosion would have made hamburger out of Sofia and any Little Sisters or caved in the side of the escape 'Lifeboat'). --- --- --- Handling 'Complaints' about the MMORPG Game : As normal, there would be Forums and Discussion groups talking about the MMORPG, with addition of similar mechanisms to coordinate the Player Asset Creation Community. One difference with THIS game is that accusations of "how bad it is" from critics can be answered with calls to the complainer to "go and do it right yourself then" which the Creation mechanisms actually would often make possible. How many times I've heard fanbois ignorantly tell someone with a valid negative comment "then go and create your owns game", which in most games is NOT possible at all. In THIS game, it is a major feature - that players will take a significant part in improving and expanding the game. Of course real bugs will exist, but here there will be much more chance to get them fixed (and defective parts can be pulled as easily as added in the modular system). An active 'expert' Community would be available to expedite corrections, versus a company where people are moved on to other projects and limited moneys are supplied to only fix the most gross problems. --- --- --- Water Pressure - that thing Rapture has alot of : There are several of these calculators online. http://www.lenntech.com/calculators/pressure/pressure.htm You can play with it and see for yourself some of the numbers involved with various depths. I picked 600 feet as the 'Street Level' for much of the City, with buildings usually going upwards (less deep) from there. Some parts of Rapture are fairly shallow (near the Ocean surface) as the City is built on the side of an ancient underwater volcano which rises up just about to the surface (one spot is where the Lighthouse stands). Further away, the depth plunges to several thousand feet (the typical depth of the Ocean seabed in Rapture's vicinity). You can 'run the numbers' to see what the effects of those depths are (and why it would be ALOT harder to have built Rapture there). "Six Miles under the Ocean" is the rantings of a deranged Splicer. --- --- Strawman Killing : As I've said elsewhere, the BioShock games (the real ones with Rapture) are full of Strawmen used to manipulate the Player (whether they reflect the biased beliefs of the designers or limitations on budgeted time and money, or not). The MMORPG would give more complete stories to fill out why things happened and what people there actually did (and probably attempt to explain some of the ridiculous things we half-heard muttered/saw mere foggy glimpses of in the original games).. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man --- --- --- Worlds of Rapture : Proper Design - "Measure twice, Cut once". Proper design of the Server Worlds in this proposed MMORPG is desirable. Idea - A 'Golden Age' World coexisting, which Players can visit (since Player Asset Creators will be creating the pieces of the expanded City, then why not reuse those assets in their 'like new' state (before Rapture hit the Fan) ?? The game's modular/mutation mechanism allows using the same base Assets/Object/NPCs/Terrain, and simply NOT applying the synthetic grungification that results in the Post-Ruin appearance, props and population. It may take a while for a sufficient mass of the Old City to take shape, as the Asset Creation is to be a continuous incremental activity and new potential sections would be added with time. The 'Golden Age' effectively would be a continuous Flashback situation (and it no doubt would be used in many Quest/Mission related Flashback background storyline components (so why not do it systematically...). Interactions could be as detailed as in the primary game to give the player a true feel of what the City had been. - Each Player Account only gets ONE FULL Character in only ONE Server World, and each World is supposed to reflect the choices made by its resident Players. Varying by how much of the Server World is explored/auto-expanded/developed, and by activities like fixing things up (City Center appearance) and by the created businesses/developments. They may vary quite a bit by the resident Player's preferences and priorities/decisions -- from Server World to Server World. Likewise, Server Worlds will start operating at different dates and may vary significantly by total progress/development effort achieved to move that New Rapture forward. Idea - Tourist mode for players to visit other Server Worlds just to see what other people (possibly friends) have built up. They would not really be able to effect things much during their 'visits' (assuming they can walk around as an Avatar, a 'Spy-Eye with no physical presence/effect would be even simpler). A major element of this game IS to utilize Player's imaginations, which will generate interesting experiences/activity for many other Players to see. Tourist mode could also serve the purpose to help new players to pick their permanent 'One' Server World for their character to reside in permanently -- to look around thru the existing Server Worlds before their final selection. - An interesting aspect of a conglomerated server system can be that the Server's computer machines themselves can be shared, and busy Worlds can get dynamically assigned more generic capacity when needed. The databases are separate, but the computing resources for active World areas can shift when required. An important thing when Server Farm resources are a major expense for the MMORPG Company and this type of MMORPG has high resource operating requirements. - It comes to mind that players characters effectively become NPCs when they quit ( or could act on automatic when the Player isn't playing for extended periods of time). This might have some Players attempt some manipulation by playing and setting up some distinctive in-game entity, pass resources to another player, quit and then startup again with a different character on the same Server (to impact its contents in some artificial manner). This may not be too plausible to do as new Players are not 'handed the keys to the City'. First, starting from scratch would be enforced. Players have to earn/work their way forward in influence and possessions (and especially skills which enable advanced abilities and activities). Less developed game characters would not be able to use many resources handed to them by 'quitting players' or 'gold miners'. --- --- --- Tourist things - back in Raptures "Golden Age" : * Grand Canyon type thingee ??? Great Cleft descending into that mysterious glowing Abyss ??? It cant be too dark or there is nothing to see. Glowing sea life could be spectacular (in certain aesthetic places). * Many of the 'entertainment' places you went in BS1 were spread out in various locations across the City (indicated by that Austen Bathysphere map). People from the outlying areas come to see the 'big city'. * The Atlantic Express train in BS2 took you in a more linear crossing of the Southern part of Rapture (really we've only seen a small part of all of Rapture). The Metro Trolley system will take you most anywhere. * Sports fishing from subs/diving suits ? (perhaps is an 'indoor' sea chamber at normal pressure for people in simple scuba gear to encounter various things from out in the cold Ocean). * Visiting some of Rapture's great achievements (like Hephaestus). Companies often have 'interesting' tours as part of their PR (a chance to direct-advertise their product/service). * Investor tours - part of the sales job - ie- people wanting to buy a house in the suburbs (which they plan to 'get away to') will visit those 'neighborhoods'. * Recreations of various sorts (The Stadium, The Sub Races, etc...). Vacation spots... All places to be added to the City so we can visit whats left of them. --- --- --- Tenenbaums 'The Clinic' - How big is it ?? : Its a major feature of the City Center of New Rapture. What would it comprise of - facilities, expertise??? How many NPCs involved ? * Fontaine Futuristics and Point Prometheus had facilities which could be salvaged (more Player Missions...) and other locations like the University and the Ryan Institute (and facilities Sinclair and no doubt others had). * Laboratory space for Research into 'Cure' improvements. * Library for accumulated Research materials. * 'Medical Treatment' is part of the process. So a hospital like facility is included - enough for dozens of patients. Repair and stabilization of Splicers to facilitate the 'Cure' process. * Security facilities/personnel for handling/containing un-Cured Splicers. * Technical section for building/maintaining the machines used in the 'Cure' process. * Who pays for all this ?? Lots of 'volunteer' efforts from grateful Ex-Splicers (or done for Civic Achievements) * Also, it is home of the 'reconstitution' facility where Players/NPCs pay to be repaired of injuries gotten in their "Adventuring". (the process in the MMORPG would be made interesting in itself to experience). * An adjacent 'temporary ' section for general medical/surgical care for the City's growing population. It is being moved to a new expanded facility (meaning more equipment/medicines to obtain). Access to the largely wrecked 'Medical Pavilion' (barely a real hospital, even after I extended its map representation) was impractical to use. * An "out-reach" project to present the advantages of medicine to Splicers in the 'Ruins' -- as an inducement to be 'Cured' or as Trade for cooperation with various other communities. * Tours, so that Citizens can see the good work being done in bringing Rapture back to life. * New City transportation is always being improved to make access to the facilities more convenient. --- --- Balancing the Game : A problem which frequently occurs in MMORPGs- one aspect/activity becomes too easy for Players to do to get 'stuff'/money/advancement, and many Players then never touch other more difficult aspects of the game. As Players get more abilities (via exaggerated character development) some things may get much too easy or irrelevant. A (more) realistic "supply and demand" Economy mechanism may allow sufficient "checks and balances" to prevent such distortions (example- alot of something the Players obtain easily and then try to sell causes that thing's price to drop -- til its not worth Player's effort to obtain, and THEN they have a reason go try to obtain something else). Similar balancing mechanisms would exist for player advancements in skills and resources. As the game World goes on, the City may grow and Player's abilities expand, new dynamics come into play which might not have been foreseen or planned for. Players are very good at finding loopholes (defects) that give them an unfair/unbalanced/too-easy advantage that can disrupt the normal state of the game. Game Economies are complex enough for many loopholes to be possible (and require elimination). One advantage THIS MMORPG has is that much of this game is synthesized 'on-the-fly' and not static, so that if the simulation is running too fast, things like Quests can be slowed down/difficulty adjusted/loot changed. Likewise, the NPCs can be controlled (to a large extent) to shift/balance/meter the economy better. Some 'events' can be tossed in by moderators to effect drastic changes/readjustments in the game environments balance. Splicer Faction activities can also be adjusted when required on a particular Server World. Players prefer more subtle readjustment so as not to undo their longtime efforts and goals and have time to adapt, and Moderators prefer slow changes so that they don't suddenly cause a pendulum swing in the way the game works and have umpteen thousand Players complaining about "creating more problems than they fix" or "changing the game overnight". Plenty of pretesting is part of the management process. --- --- --- Currency in New Rapture : ''' * The New Money (vs old Rapture Dollars) - now used in the New City. New Money has begun to be produced because the rare old bottle caps being used as tokens were too few to act as money/'currency'. * The Old Money still has its uses for the old vending machines -- if you can still find ones working with inventory in them). The old money also works as 'funny money' in some of the Casinos. * Splicers still use ADAM, and Players may deal with Splicers using that as a 'currency'. * ADAM is still used in parts of the 'Cure' process (so will have value along with many other commodities) * Other factions/independent communities can have their own money tokens (Gallons of Moonshine in some places, Big Daddy Eye-porthole lenses in another). * Civic Prestige Points in the City Achievement system.... These would be tradable for certain favors, usually access to limited equipment/resources/opportunities. Do something useful for the City and earn your points (part of the "carrot" vs "stick" system of getting things done). --- --- --- '''Stuff still in vending machines ? : It puzzles me (plotwise) that so many goodies would still be left in the vending/free machines in BS1/BS2. You'd think they would have been long cleaned out (being a resupply mechanism for blast-fest game simply justifies it, overriding logic). Hacking might have been too hazardous for most Splicers (especially if they have 'the shakes'), but we found plenty of Splicers carrying sufficient money (And Big Daddies had alot too?? Interesting...). Was someone still filling the machines with new inventory? Making new inventory? Were people still being paid ?? In BS1, Rapture must not have been as "gone" as they made you believe. And in BS2 I see no reason why Lamb would not have seized anything/everything good and doled it out exclusively to her faithful lackeys (to exert control). --- --- --- --- --- . .